Many social media users who opened X over the weekend found themselves confronted with post after post about a 2000s-era sitcom that ended over 10 years ago. Almost overnight, timelines everywhere were flooded with popular jokes from the NBC show “30 Rock.”
Known for its absurd scripts and unabashed political commentary, “30 Rock” satirized the workplace shenanigans behind a live sketch comedy show that supposedly airs on NBC.
The fictional show, “TGS with Tracy Jordan” (originally “The Girlie Show”), was inspired loosely by Tina Fey’s nearly decadelong run as head writer for “Saturday Night Live,” which is written and produced in New York City’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza — hence the name of the series.
In a 2014 Atlantic analysis of a dozen popular U.S. comedy shows, “30 Rock” came out on top as averaging just over seven jokes per minute — making it so that there were plenty of clips to choose from as X users’ timelines were flooded with fans’ favorite “30 Rock” moments.
One user shared a scene that followed the “TGS” writing staff as it struggled to choose an inoffensive name for a pocket microwave. In a last-ditch attempt to let fate determine its name, network executive Jack Donaghy pulled out a bag of Scrabble tiles — only to accept defeat after the third try, when he slapped down a randomized line of tiles that spelled out “HITLER.”
In another fan-favorite scene, “TGS” star Tracy Jordan tells Donaghy that he Googles himself all the time, especially when his wife isn’t “in the mood.” When Jack informs him the phrase doesn’t mean what he thinks it means, Tracy realizes why “TGS” head writer Liz Lemon was so nonchalant about his request to “Google” himself in her office.
The series’ biting political humor is also evident in many of the most viral jokes shared on X over the weekend.
One cheeky moment racked up nearly 40,000 likes. When Jack asks NBC page Kenneth Parcell whether he would vote Republican if his celebrity idol told him to, Parcell says no.
“I don’t vote Republican or Democrat,” he says. “Choosing is a sin, so I always just write in the Lord’s name!”
“That’s Republican,” Jack responds. “We count those.”
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Another interaction between Liz and Tracy gained similar traction when it was shared. To comfort a hangry Tracy about having to starve for 24 hours to prepare for his colonoscopy, Liz tells him fasting can “clear your mind.”
She brings up the time she went on a hunger strike in college to protest apartheid, before Tracy cuts her off: “Oh, you’re the one who solved that? Thank you so much!”
And still others shared jokes that stood out not for any layered social commentary but for their pure silliness — such as when Jack’s mother rings a bell to call him over, only to tell him that she needs her other bell. And in another episode, a new NBC game show requiring contestants to guess the correct meanings of homophones went similarly viral after a user shared a clip “so dumb it’ll always make me laugh.”
Before it built into a surge of nostalgic appreciation for “30 Rock,” discourse around the show began bubbling up last week after YouTuber Quinton Hoover, who analyzes pop culture and TV shows online as Quinton Reviews, shared his “hot take” on the show: that although it is a “much funnier” show than the likes of “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” its characters are less relatable.
Hoover wrote in an email that he was surprised at the wrath he evoked from “30 Rock” fans. Suddenly, he had ignited a stream of arguments online in favor of the show.
“Which was odd to me, because I never said it wasn’t the better show. I just said it didn’t have some wholesome, buddy-comedy quality that many people search out when choosing shows to binge-watch on repeat,” he wrote. “I think a lot of people seek out modern sitcoms that feature people you want to be friends with — 30 Rock is the underdog because it didn’t do that at all.”
The series, which ran from 2006 to 2013, is criticized today for some of its attempts at humor that would no longer fly on the air. Four episodes in which characters are featured in blackface were removed from streaming services in 2020, at the request of its creators and NBCUniversal.
NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC News.
“The show mostly features terrible people you’d never want to know in real life,” Hoover wrote. “But the comedy generated from seeing these characters bounce around and collide with each other is timeless.”
